Elder Merrill's Current Address

Monday, September 3, 2012

August 20st, 2012

Did I say last week that I would not be playing the Piano in
Lingayen 2 ward? Well I spoke too soon. Guess who played the piano
yesterday. I did. The piano player was late or something, I don't
really know, but the Bishop asked at about 8:59 if
I knew how to play the piano, so I did. I could also mention here that
at 8:58 the Bishop asked me to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. So
with my added Piano task I had no time at all to prepare my talk. I
thought I gave a pretty good talk, I didn't
have scriptures in Tagalog with me at the pulpit so I would just open
up my English scripture read it in English and then explain it in
Tagalog. I am very able to that it really wasn't even hard. I just
think back to my first talk where the entire talk was
very scripted and I read it off of a paper. It's something that I
don't think about very often but every once and a while I just kind of
step back and think, 'I don't have to try to speak Tagalog anymore, it
just comes'. I don't know if I ever mentioned
it but I am reading the Book of Mormon in Tagalog right now.
The original goal was to finish it on my mission, but I am set right
now to finish before the new year.

Yesterday we taught the Sison family. They are very nice,
they read the Book of Mormon, but they just don't come to church. We
taught a lesson about obedience and after the lesson Sister Sison said
in one of the most determined ways I've heard
that she was going to church next Sunday. She said if she goes alone,
or even if there is flooding to her waist she will be going to church on
Sunday. That's a very good thing, and it's something that we as
missionaries love to hear. (Also I would point
out you will not likely ever be required to wade through waist deep
water to go to church.) This week we found 2 great less
active families. One we found using the ward directory and just looking
for names of members. They are so nice. They came upon problems
when they were recently baptized and stopped going to church years ago,
but they are really nice and don't have anything against the church or
our teaching them. The other family we found on the street when we were
walking. We started talking to this old
lady and she said her son went on a mission. We talked to her some
more and found that she had 2 returned missionary sons and 8 other
children, all of whom are members. Then she invited us to come to her
house to look at pictures of their family back when
they used to go to church. We didn't meet all of the family members at
that time, but those who were home were very nice and very willing to
listen to our message. They have great potential and I can see high
chances of their returning to church. We don't
have very many investigators here, mostly we are teaching less actives,
but we have one investigator named Meryll. That's my name too, well
different spelling and it's their first name, but that doesn't really
matter.

So random other story; I had a guy quote the pharisees to
me. He didn't mean to, he was actually just telling me why I was wrong.
What he didn't realize is that what I said mirrored something Jesus
said and his response was the Pharisee response
to Jesus. He wasn't the focus of our lesson, he was just there, but
the person who we were really teach caught the reference. They noticed
that his response was the pharisee response. He was taken aback
somewhat. It is actually interesting how sometimes
people will say things contrary to us, after we quote Bible scriptures
or teach a principle clearly taught in the Bible. I've had people tell
me things like Moses was not a prophet, or Jesus did not establish a
church or other truths found
in the Bible.

Anyway, I still don't know everyone in this area but it is a
good place. It is way smaller than my other areas. I think it is one
of the smallest areas. The city has three wards. Most of the city
going to ward 1, 29 barangays I think. We have 5
barangays. It's fun.